Chlorophyll+and+Algae

__ **Chlorophyll and Algae ** __ During the span of this course water samples were taken on three consecutive weeks at sites 2, 4, and 6 on both Marsh and Long Island creeks In order to discern the amount of chlorophyll in the water. This is relative to the amount of phytoplankton, or suspended algae, present in the two creeks. On the first day of sampling a plankton tow was conducted at site 6 of each creek in order to give a representative snap shot of the phytoplankton community structure. This was done in order to give base line information about the microscopic photosynthetic community size and structure. Knowing this give the research team a biotic way to assess the stream and more importantly allows for potential correlations to be made between the biotic and abiotic data collected. For more information on this part of the project: Chlorophyll Analysis

The method for Chlorophyll collection consisted of collecting water samples in triplicate for each of the six sites, 2,4,and 6 on Marsh and Long Island creeks. 9 samples per creek per week. These samples were collected mid-stream, mid-depth and immediately put on ice in a dark cooler. Within 2-4 hours of collection a measured volume of water from each of the samples were subjected to vacuum filtration through a .7 micron filter. The used filters, which contain all the organisms from the water samples and thus all the chlorophyll, are then soaked in acetone in a dark freezer for 18 hours to allow the chlorophyll to fully suspend itself in the acetone. The filter samples were then centrifuged at 4000 rpms for 10+ min. and the resulting supernatant was then decanted into quarts cuvettes and the absorbance of these supernatans was measured at 750nm and 665nm in order to deduce the concentration of chlorophyll in each sample. The mean values for each site are graphed and availible for viewing in the results section of this Wikispace.